Ivan Coyote didn't leave the Yukon until she was 12 and when she was young, her family didn't have TV.
"CBC [radio] at a very early age was my only connection to understanding that I was part of a country," the acclaimed writer and storyteller said.
Coyote continues to find comfort in the daily time signals that mark 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. and brags that she can sing the instrumental opening theme music for As it Happens.
"If you started to hum a few bars, I could bust out that full f***ing flute solo right now," she said.
And when she drives the Alaska Highway, her life depends on the weather reports CBC radio delivers that 3G technology cannot.
Coyote is one of three storytellers who will intersperse tales of their personal connections to the beleaguered Canadian Broadcasting Corporation with an on-stage living room-style conversation at a Reimagine CBC event at the Vogue Theatre, May 7.
The Reimagine CBC website has been running since late January, collecting 400 ideas from 900 users and 10,000 votes on the ideas that have been posted. Media advocacy groups Open Media, LeadNow and Gen Why Media are bringing the online discussion offline with this public event where they'll get the audience to help them shape campaign values and principles, perhaps with applause meters. Open Media is to deliver a report to the CBC and the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission in September, when another event is scheduled for Toronto. Tara Mahoney, creative director for Gen Why, said Open Media reports have influenced the CRTC in the past.
Documentary filmmaker and interactive storyteller Nettie Wild, comedian and
ShitHarperDid co-founder Sean Devlin, and ethnographer, writer, photographer and filmmaker Wade Davis are among the seasoned professionals, up-and-coming CBC talent, experts, media innovators and citizens who will share their views about the future of Canadian public media at the event.
"It's not to be misconstrued as an effort to support the privatization or diminishment of the CBC at all," Mahoney said. "It's quite the opposite. We want to see it stick around and we're trying to build up a strong enough base of support that it makes it harder and harder to cut the CBC because we feel it is so important to the Canadian experience."
The Canadian Media Guild, the union of 4,500 CBC employees, approached and provided a grant to Open Media to attract new audiences and energy to the cause that is also championed by Friends of Canadian Broadcasting.
To that end, the "celebration" at the Vogue will feature performances by Aidan Knight, Hannah Epperson, Zachery Gray and Dan Mangan.
Mahoney said CBC president and CEO Hubert Lacroix sent Reimagine CBC a letter when it first launched.
"They've basically said we'll listen," she said.
Mahoney added Reimagine CBC inspired "The Network: Fixing the CBC" series that has been undertaken by the Toronto Star.
The CBC will lose $115 million in funding over three years, according to a federal government budget released last month.
Some say innovative ideas are impossible to implement at the giant corporation.
"That's kind of the question that the campaign is meant to bring up, is why can't that happen," Mahoney said. "What needs to change in order for it to happen and, also, it probably has to because the budget's been completely slashed."
To add their two cents, visitors to reimaginecbc.ca should click the "I have an idea" button.
"I believe in civic engagement and if you get somebody to submit their idea, then they're even just a little bit invested in the process and then maybe a little bit more invested in the CBC, and you don't necessarily know how that's going to translate down the road," Mahoney said.
Coyote has a very clear idea of the direction she'd like the CBC to take.
"When Stuart McLean retires, I want to take over Vinyl Café with an edge, with a serious edge," she said. "Like maybe Morley takes up being a dominatrix part time, and someone has to finally come out of the closet."
Reimagine CBC starts at 7 p.m. For more information, see reimaginecbc.ca.
[email protected] Twitter: @Cheryl_Rossi
